Timmins--James Bay

Today is the last day make your written submissions in the 2009 copyright consultation, but this does not mean the process is over. In fact, we should be winding up towards the next stage in the process and not winding down.

There are two sets of things that will be happening next: analysis of submissions, and then moving this into the political process. Nik Nanos will be summarizing the comments to the 5 topic areas, and the bureaucracy will be doing their analysis of the written submissions. We need to do our own analysis.

There may soon be a federal election. Whether there is or not, we need to work within each riding to ensure that as many members of parliament will be as informed as possible when a bill is tabled and there is committee and house debate on the bill. It matters who these individual people will be, and less what party they are affiliated with. To this end I have just donated $500 to the campaign of author, broadcaster, editor, journalist, musician, negotiator, singer, and Timmins--James Bay MP Charlie Angus.

Obvious place to start the list, with incumbent Charlie Angus of the New Democrats expected to keep his seat. He is the incumbent MP who best understands technology law issues, whether it be Copyright or Net Neutrality. He has also been very successful in educating and working within his caucus to enable the NDP to have some of the strongest candidates in this election.

P2pnet editor Jon Newton has decided to come out in support of a specific party, namely the NDP, as the party people should support if the issues we cover on p2pnet are important to you. While I agree with some of the specific candidates he mentions, such as Timmins–James Bay candidate and NDP digital spokesperson Charlie Angus, and Vancouver Centre candidate Michael Byers, I believe it’s the candidates we need to concentrate on, and not the parties.

I notice a thread on SlashDot about C-61 dieing with the election being called. What I find interesting is how many people have stated publicly that they plan to vote NDP as the party most likely to gain a number of seats which has a reasonable view on Copyright. SlashDot has tended to have people who are right-of-center, towards Libertarian views, so is a community that would traditionally be closer to what the Conservatives claim to represent. There are people who claim to be lifelong conservatives looking towards the NDP this election, feeling the Conservatives have abandoned them.

NDP Digital spokesperson Charlie Angus has been extremely visible in this debate, and the more fellow NDP members that get elected, the more powerful Mr. Angus' voice becomes.

The Green Party (more centre-right) is also mentioned, although with only one MP that didn't have a chance to stand and speak in the house as a Green, people aren't sure about them yet. There also hasn't been a digital spokesperson constantly speaking out on this issue, with the NDP being the only party (with or without seats in the house) who has such a person. It would be great if such a person came forward from each party who could put a positive face onto that party, but thus far this hasn't happened.

In an article in p2pnet , Charlie Angus, Digital Spokesperson for the New Democratic Party, said that "Under Stephen Harper, Canadians are being force-fed US-style copyright legislation." When I read this, all I could think is "I wish"!

While I've written about how some aspects of C-61 are lifted near-identical out of the USA's DMCA, I have not yet put them in context with the rest of their copyright act. Bill C-61, like the DMCA, is a set of changes between the previous Copyright and a new Copyright. US copyright law was more fair before their DMCA than Canadian law is now, and if Canada takes the direction articulated in C-61 we will become that much worse than US law. As bad as this would be, I would be happier to have Canada simply adopt current US law (DMCA and all) than to apply Bill C-61 to current Canadian law.

GUELPH – NDP candidate for Guelph and author Tom King will be in Toronto on July 24, 2008 to meet with regional artists, activists and academics who are opposed to the Conservatives’ Bill C-61. The event, which is being held at the Edward Day Art Gallery, will look at strategies for opposing the U.S.-style copyright legislation.